Spring 2012

Spring 2012 Courses

JNST OOOA
MW 1:00-2:20

Retrovisions: Pastiche, Homage and Revival in Film (and Other Media)
Co-facilitated by Piers Britton and Samantha Berkman

This seminar explores popular entertainment texts which look backward – sometimes in adoration or fascination, and sometimes with ambivalence or even (so to speak) over their shoulders. Such retro-oriented texts are often met with enthusiasm, and are certainly plentiful: Hollywood alone churns out revivals, remakes, and sequels at a relentless pace. Yet our society is one which privileges the “progressive” and innovative, and places correspondingly little cultural value on work which is imitative or derivative. So while hommage was a buzzword among modernist painters, and while pastiche was briefly rehabilitated in postmodern theory, there has been relatively little critical attention paid to the often rich and rewarding array of texts which in one way or another play with precedent.

Taking Richard Dyer’s recent book Pastiche as its starting point, this seminar will explore the pleasures and artistic richness of an array of material that embraces pastiche, homage and revival. Texts under discussion will likely include the television series Doctor Who, Mad Men, and The Singing Detective; in music, The Nutcracker, together with homages by Duke Ellington and David Bintley; and in film Chinatown and L.A. Confidential, the Indiana Jones and Star Wars films, and Todd Haynes’ complex pastiche on the melodramas of Douglas Sirk, Far from Heaven.

JNST OOOB
Wednesday 1:00-3:50

Slow Writing
Prof. Leslie Brody

This creative writing class is designed for students willing to write exclusively on paper, without the aid of any technical devices. We’ll work, as the masters of classic literature did in longhand. Over the course of the semester we’ll read some “slow texts” chosen by the class to inspire us, beginning with Thoreau and Virginia Woolf. We’ll seek out quiet sanctuaries in which to write, and experiment with the concept of the “fair copy” written in ink.

JNST OOOC
Tues. 1:00-3:50pm (class)
Tues: 6:00-8:50pm (lab)

Animal as Avatar in Film and Fiction
Greg Bills (Creative Writing)

First, a word about what this course will NOT consider: Those tall blue critters from that James Cameron movie. Or YouTube clips of kitties dancing across keyboards. Or charcoal sketches of someone’s favorite horse. Yet we can ask the same question of all of these cultural artifacts as well as the films and fictions that we will explore in this course:

Can an animal ever be simply itself in a work of art, or is it always a metaphor, a symbol, a signifier for something else?

This course will examine cinematic and literary artworks that offer a variety of perspectives on how and why animals make their appearance in fictional narratives. We will consider the reasons that animals in the movies so often seem like human beings in costumes of fur, feathers, or scales from surrealistic Bug Bunny cartoons to the documentary “reality” of March of the Penguins. We will examine the ways that depictions of animals have been used to embody ideas of wildness, beastliness, loyalty and treachery, the tame and the untamed, the angelic and the demonic—from the protagonists of fairytales and children’s books like Where the Red Fern Grows, to the heroes of classic films like the cursed prince in Cocteau’s Beauty and the Beast and the saintly donkey in Bresson’s Au Hasard Balthazar. And we will explore how the interactions of human and animal characters are used to illustrate and illuminate a range of concerns from the environmental message of Princess Mononoke to the philosophical journey from human to animal to vegetable to mineral in Le Quattro Volte.

“Animal as Avatar” should be a useful course for students interested in film and film studies, literature and creative writing, human-animal relations studies, and cultural studies. The course will offer opportunities for students to explore the issues raised from a number of perspectives and to apply their knowledge of a variety of disciplines and interests. Although this course is not intended as a class in filmmaking or creative writing, both creative and critical projects will be encouraged to fulfill course assignments.
If this course sounds intriguing and you have further questions/ideas, you are invited to email me at greg_bills@redlands or to stop by my office to chat: Hall of Letters 214.

JNST OOOE
Tues./Thurs. 11:00-12:20

YOGA
Prof. Pat Geary

This course is an introduction to Hatha Yoga. We will stretch, breathe, and chant. Hatha Yoga prepares the body, physically and mentally, for meditation and relaxation. In addition to our classes in the Meditation Room, students are expected to maintain journals, read yoga books, and create an independent project of substance. Field trips to other yoga studios are encouraged but not required.

JNST OOOF

Mapping “Go West Young Man: Conquest and Sustainability in the American West,” and “Mammoth May Term” Johnston Spring and May 2012

I invite you to create an integrated learning project that will take us to a dynamic and interesting community in the West—Mammoth, California. In Spring and May 2012, Professor (and Interim College Dean) Kathy Ogren will teach these inter-related seminars Johnston Alum Matt Taylor JC ’10 will co-teach the May Term course. We will indeed explore the question “what are all these people doing,” past, present and future, in the Eastern Sierras.

Our Road Trip begins with research and reflection in the Spring semester:
We’ll explore “from home” through interdisciplinary scholarship and writing documenting the historical, literary, natural history, environmental and cultural dynamics of the region through “Go West Young Man,” which will meet Wednesdays 6-9 in the Spring semester. At least two guests will join us in spring, poet Paul Zarzyski and Johnston Alum, green businessman and climate change activist Tom Bowman.

Course readings will be primarily focused on California and Eastern Sierras history. (See possible readings list that follows.) We’ll debate the tensions between American individualism and sustainable communities (also a tension in the Johnston community); the impact of writers and visual artists in the Sierras; economic and cultural sustainability in the arid West; environmental stewardship and activism; cultural and economic diversity; boom and bust economics in rural America; tourism and travel literature; American patterns of work and leisure; outdoor education; and the historical importance of pastoral visions.

In May, (4th to the 20th), we travel to Mammoth, California, where each student will explore their perspectives on sustainable communities through field work of varied kinds, negotiated in your contracts. We’ll combine in class sessions with field trips and local explorations to places like Manzanar, Bodie State Park, Mary Austin’s home, the Bristlecone Forest, Owens Valley and Mono Lake, local museums, public lands, conservancies, ranches, and of course, the ski industry in Mammoth. The natural landscape of Eastern Sierras mountains, sagebrush, rivers and lakes is at our doorstep, providing opportunities for you to explore on your own.

We hope members of the local community will join the class, either as fulltime participants or through our field trips and excursions. Additionally, I hope we can give back to the community through a local community service project.

You do not need to enroll in both classes to practice this integration; you can enroll singly in the classes or take them together. Either way, if you are interested, please join me to negotiate the planning for spring and May Term. We are a “pilot project” for the entire College. The path we make could soon be followed by others from our University community.

Please join me on Friday October 14, 3:00 p.m. in Bekins to plan the class!

JNST OOOG
T-Th 11:30-12:50

Big Russki Books (####### ####### #####)
Bill McDonald

It’s a simple course to describe: two books, 2100 pages, and full immersion in the epic fictions of two great Russian writers. These 19th century novels always appear on lists of the “greatest novels ever written,” and are arguably best encountered with a group of committed fellow readers. If you love books that never end and will change how you see the world …

If you’re planning on taking the course, there’s a terrific deal available, at least for a little while. Both novels have been brilliantly re-translated by an American/Russian couple: Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky. Since we obviously MUST read the same translation, their versions of both books are currently available from Amazon in paperback for less than $24. That’s amazing. Just go to War and Peace and locate the Pevear-Volokhonsky translation of Tolstoy’s novel (Vintage books). It’s currently listed second, right after the Kindle version with an older translator, on the webpage. The combination offer can be found just below; Dostoevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov is published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux.

JNST OOOH
MWF 9:30-10:50am

Infinity: Big Numbers, Big Ideas, and a Little God
Steve Morics

This course is intended to serve as an introduction to the process and practice of mathematics for Johnston students who have not had much recent mathematical experience. Designed to deal with meaningful mathematics in a friendly and engaging format, the course will explore important historical advances in mathematics, links between mathematics and other fields such as religion, art and psychology, and the limits of what mathematics is able to accomplish by examining the topic of infinity. The final subject list will be negotiated between the instructor and enrolled students, but doing actual computations and constructing mathematical arguments will remain a significant aspect of the course. It is expected that the course will cover
1. the difference between infinity and really large numbers, and how that may affect decision-making,
2. an introduction to calculus for non-mathematicians, dealing with the infinitely small and the infinitely many,
3. working through the transfinite arithmetic of Georg Cantor,
4. the Impossibility Theorems of Kurt Godel,
5. the importance of the infinite in religion and mysticism, and the interplay between the mystical and mathematical, and
6. emotional or psychological reactions to pondering infinite quantities,
to varying degrees. Hopefully, the numerous connections between mathematics and other fields, the foundational concepts in mathematics itself, and the pleasure and challenge of pondering the infinite will make this course appealing to those who might otherwise avoid mathematics.

JNST OOOIWednesday 6-8:50 p.m

Johnston Integrated Semester In Oaxaca/Guatemala
Patricia Wasielewski

During this Integrated Semester students travel to Oaxaca, Mexico where they are based for the majority of the semester. Time is spent studying Spanish (or Zapotec), staying with a homestay family, taking a course on Globalization, Development and Tourism with Pat Wasielewski, engaging in community involvement tied to their emphasis or major and learning about culture and politics of the area. Trips to other areas of the state of Oaxaca, to Mexico City and to various areas of Guatemala occur during the semester to serve as contexts for comparison for what is being studied.

An interview process for enrollment in the semester is required. Open to all students no matter level of Spanish fluency or year at the University. Please see Dr. Wasielewski for more information. Limit 12.

JNST OOOJ
T/TH 9:30-10:50am

Believe it or Not
Ben Aronson

The course will be a chance to study science at the extremes including strange but (likely) true observations in science. The course will likely focus on biology—how organisms can live in inhospitable places, what happens to organisms in extreme environments, the study of organisms that have more than two sexes or of organisms that can switch sexes, are some examples I can think of but we can also examine physical science at the extremes if there is interest—how physical laws are different at the subatomic level, what happens to objects as they near extreme gravitational forces of black holes. We will also examine extraordinary claims made in scientific publications and use this to understand the culture of science.

JNST OOOK
WF 9:30-10:50am

Latin Tutorials
Judith Tschann

For some of you, this Latin tutorial will be the second-semester continuation of intensive beginning college Latin. We will quickly review some aspects of grammar from the first semester, and then plow ahead in Wheelock to the glorious end, covering such fine points of grammar as the various forms and uses of the subjunctive, deponent verbs, gerunds and gerundives, “fear” clauses, sequence of tenses, and much more. We will emphasize the practice and theory of translation as we move beyond exercises to real (albeit highly edited) passages of literature and history.

For others, this tutorial will be an intensive beginning Latin class, requiring daily homework, memorizing, possible quizzes, a collaboratively designed midterm demonstration of learning, and an ambitious final project. By the end of the semester, you will have a firm grasp of basic grammar (of Latin and of English), a developing sense of the joys and challenges of translating, a bigger vocabulary, and at least a budding interest in Roman literature and history

This course is inspired by a remarkable learning experience I shared with a Johnston course that traveled to Dharamsala India in May 2011 to study with His Holiness the 17th Karmapa. When we arrived, we were prepared to embark upon a remarkable cross-cultural encounter. While it was that, the Karmapa was much more interested in sharing a human encounter. By inviting us to share our life experiences as the basis for learning together, the Karmapa offered us new possibilities for how we can participate in global communities. This Johnston inter-disciplinary seminar will give us the opportunity to consider how we can approach and construct cross-cultural encounters that lead us to authentic human encounters.

We will explore the ways that cross-cultural encounters are defined and described as moving across geographical, temporal and social boundaries. We will consider the ways cross-cultural encounters are theorized, romanticized and critiqued through reading anthropological theory and ethnographies, approaches to inter-religious dialogue and religious conflict, post-colonial theory, literature, social theory and philosophy. Throughout the semester we will actively reflect upon our own experiences of cross-cultural encounters (perhaps in study-abroad semesters, or cross-cultural experiences closer to home) by employing these various perspectives. We will design a significant portion of the syllabus together according to your interests.

JNST OOOM
M 6:00-9:00pm

Integrated Seminar
Kelly Hankin

Prerequisite: This course requires an application and permission from the instructor.

What is the Johnston Integrated Semester? This class is a valuable, yet often mysterious, course that is often mistaken for an Individualized Study. It is actually quite different. Whereas an Individualized Study enables a student to craft a class around a topic not necessarily offered at the University, Integrated Semester is a class for advanced students (typically juniors and seniors) who are ready to integrate their chosen fields of study into a large-scale project. Projects may vary, but all will combine some variety of learning modes, including research, creative practice, experiential learning, analytic work, teaching, etc. Typically, students register for 8 to 12 units, which require them to work on their projects for approximately 24 to 36 hours per week. Some students choose to enroll in one regular course during the semester, however the bulk of the semester’s work is dedicated to bringing the Integrated Semester project to fruition. The work is done independently, but students work in constant consultation with the professor of Integrated Semester and at least one additional faculty member. Weekly meetings with fellow Integrated Semester students, Integrated Semester faculty, and faculty advisor are expected, as is evidence of weekly progress towards project completion. Candidates for Integrated Semester must have a graduation contract on file, strong working relationships with the faculty consultants, and the ability to work independently.

If you are interested in joining this class, please submit answers to the following questions to Professor Kelly Hankin at kelly_hankin@redlands.edu by registration deadline.

1. Please describe the project in some detail. You might want to include a title and a description of what you want to accomplish. What questions are you addressing and why are they important to you?
2. Why is this work an Integrated Semester and not an Individualized Study?
3. Please describe the type of integration you plan to accomplish. How are the different aspects of the project related to one another?
4. Please describe the research methods and materials you plan to use in order to accomplish the project.
5. How many units of Integrated Semester are you applying for and how will you distribute those units in relation to the work you plan to accomplish? Be as specific as you can. If you do not think you can account for the units and hours of work time, you may want to reconsider the Integrated Semester and perhaps shift into an Individualized Study.
6. How does this project fit into your Graduation Contract and what work have you already done to prepare you for the Integrated Semester?
7. Describe how you plan to work with faculty members during the I.S.? If you have already identified faculty members to help with the project, please identify who they are. If not, please begin to think about whom you can work with on this project. It is necessary to work with a faculty advisor. Upon receipt of this application, I will notify you about your status in the class.

JNST OOON
TTH 2:30-3:50pm

Cabinet of Spells: Myth and Folklore in World Literature
Kimberly Welch

This course explores complex issues that shape the historical, literary and anthropological interpretation of myth and meaning in folklore and world literature. The readings and films encompass a wide array of material, from ethnography, modern fairy tales and children stories to graphic novels. Students are encouraged to share with their fellow classmates their extensive knowledge of assigned readings, film and genres related to the course material. The texts include Roald Dahl’s Fantastic Mr. Fox, the harry Potter saga, Alan Moore’s Watchmen, Gene Luen Yang’s American Born Chinese and Ransom Riggs’ Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children.

JNST OOOO
Tuesday/Thursday 9:30-10:50

1970s Visual Culture
Professor Tim Seiber

What did the 1970s look like, and how do we know? And anyway – what does it mean to have a “look” that is recognizable in the first place? By the way, what do you mean by visual culture? In this class, we will survey the 1970s as a historical period, on our way trying to answer some of these questions. We’ll spend a great deal of time learning to look closely at specific cultural objects, balancing this with a healthy dose of history (what really did happen in the 1970s?) and some theory, too (what is culture, and how can we specify what is particularly “visual” about it?) Most of our time will be spend with our heads stuck in the 1970s. We’ll take about race and racism in television; the political nature of aesthetics and art objects as they relate to the Feminist Art Movement; films of all stripes including the slasher-horror, the political thriller, and the cult-classic midnight movies; postmodern architecture; fashion and cultural identity; PBS and the coming culture wars. After thoroughly saturating ourselves with objects and analysis from the 1970s, we’ll take a look back from the present, thinking about nostalgia and how we represent the period, from Ang Lee’s The Ice Storm to That 70s Show. Students will be expected to do some research into a visual/aural artifact from the 1970s, read and participate in class discussion, and do a final research project working through key topics of visual culture in the 1970s.

JNST OOOP
Thursday 1-4

Hard Science, Soft Culture
Professor Tim Seiber

Turn on your TV any day, at any time, and you will be able to see a medical image, made using laboratory equipment but portrayed to you as home entertainment. With re-runs of Criminal Minds, House, ER, CSI, and dozens of other shows clogging the televisual tubes, we might say these images are a dime a dozen. And yet, very few of us have the technical skill and training to see these pictures as anything other than entertainment, as crucial to the development and resolution of oh-so-many hour-long plots. It is this kind of interaction – between the public and the laboratory, as by turns entertainment and education – that this course will investigate. Rooted in science and technology studies, media theory, and popular culture, the breadth of this class is limited only by our capacity to find and analyze instances when science and technology leave the laboratory and are beamed to you at home on TV, in the pages of advertisements, as graphics in films and commercials, on billboards, and in countless other public forums. What does it mean that General Electric (GE) is at the center of research and development of medial imaging technologies, but they also are vertically integrated into corporate entertainment? Why are there so many movies/TV shows about pregnant women that always, inevitably, have a scene at the OBGYN where the “sonographic moment” is portrayed? (Think I’m kidding? Knocked Up, Baby Mama, Juno, Secret Life of an America Teenager, 90210; the list goes on.) How did Bryan Singer make the opening credits of the first X-Men movie look like “real” neural synapses? We’ll root these discussions historically, starting with the 17th century’s obsession with drawing and distributing pictures of breasts, and end with a discussion of the role of video gamers in understanding the shape and function of the HIV molecule. Although I have an agenda for what we might talk about, this course is open to student-led discussion of an object of interest.

JNST OOOR
Wed. 6:00-9:00pm

Books That Make You Want to Write:Re-Re-Reloaded
Shiloh Drake

Books That Make You Want to Write is just that: A course during which we read books that, for one reason or another, make us want to harness our own muse and write. Some might be written in an interesting style, some might have compelling characters, and others might make you marvel as to why in the world they were published in the first place—but even if that reason to write is “Come on, I can do better than that” and the writing begins, then the goal has been accomplished.

The three-hour class will be divided into two sections: Discussing the book and discussing (or doing) writing. There will be a variety of writing exercises, with three longer pieces to write, a presentation of a “conference paper”, and the opportunity to do workshops depending on contracting. A list of books that I’ll choose from follows, but one of the books we read will be chosen by the class—and not necessarily from this list.

“Bartelby” and “Billy Budd” by Herman Melville
The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster
Tell-All by Chuck Palahniuk
In the Miso Soup by Ryu Murakami
1984 by George Orwell
The Girl Who Played Go by Shan Sa
Einstein’s Dreams by Alan Lightman
The Bridges of Madison County by Robert James Waller
Home Land by Sam Lipsyte
Audition by Ryu Murakami
Snow Country by Yasunari Kawabata
Like Water for Chocolate by Laura Esquivel
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon
A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess
Lullaby by Chuck Palahniuk
Memories of My Melancholy Whores by Gabriel García Márquez

Level Up!
An Intellectual Exploration into Video Games, Their Stories, Their Controversies and Their Future Alec Zurligen/Nicholas Shunda

Video games have only been around for 50 years, and studying video games is even more so, really taking off around 10 years ago. Video games are an art form, and as such deserve the attention that literature, film and other forms of art receive. Video games stimulate their audience both mentally and physically and are becoming the venue for advances in science, education, literature and many other fields. Thus, this class was born. We will explore the history and development of video games, debates and controversies, how video games tell stories and educate and inspire their audience. Also, we will explore how they interact with other media, philosophy and today’s issues. We will play games such as BioShock, to see how this medium uses story and philosophy, and Grand Theft Auto to show how controversy has affected video games and explore the argument of whether or not video games cause violence. We will also engage the scholarly debate between Narratology and Ludology by reading authors such as Janet Murray and Jesper Juul. We will also watch the online series Extra Credits for insight from industry veterans.
Participating in the class itself will be a game. Aside from studying video games in various ways, each session will be a chance to “level up”, collect skills and achievements and there may be a few chances for boss battles-- visitors from within the video game community.

This class is an opportunity for students to be a part of an innovative experiment. The premise is simple enough, but there are many possibilities for innovation. Students in this course will explore intensive collaborative research within a living/learning community. Students and the facilitator will test innovative ways of working on research, including simple requirements like always working on research in the same place as others in the seminar. The topic of the research group will be Johnston’s place within the University of Redlands, the Liberal Arts, and Higher Education in general. The seminar will create a research anthology that analyzes this topic and offers suggestions for Johnston’s future. This anthology will be tremendously helpful for students new to the center. They will be able to see why what we do here is so important and how Johnston will impact the future of higher education. I also hope it will spark thinking and discussion among older students and faculty.

One of the reasons this course was developed was because Johnston Center students have sometimes been critiqued for not always having strong analytic writing and intensive research skills. The claimed explanation for this is that the community is more focused on seminar dialogical skills and also that having an intensive living/learning community makes private intensive research challenging. I would like to use this class as an opportunity to challenge this claim. I believe that via collaborative research methods, analytic writing and intensive research is possible and does thrive in Johnston. I also want to stretch the possibilities of collaborative research. How can we integrate the way we live in Johnston into a unique research methodology?

Students will be required to buy Disgrace by J.M. Coetzee and read before the semester starts. Students will also be required to buy or borrow Encountering Disgrace: Read and Teaching Coetzee’s Novel for the class.

JNST OOOU
Fridays 1:00-3:50pm

GYST
Denise Davis

We invite you to join us in the seminar where we will build our syllabus while practicing and examining the arts of successful organization, time management, and project planning relative to the Johnston academic practice. Seminar participants will dialogue about academic/personal/interpersonal issues, graduation contract building, and our living/learning experiences. Each participant will develop a contract that addresses his or her specific needs.

JNST OOOV
Thursday 6:00-9:00pm

Consciousness: What is it Good For?
An Inquiry Regarding the Origins of Knowledge amd Imagination
Gary Amdahl

We will make an attempt to reclaim all of human and possibly pre-human and non-human consciousness in order to expand our notions (or disassemble rigid mental structures) of creative and critical thinking (two sides of the same intellectual coin). As William Faulkner once said, “The past isn’t over. It isn’t even the past.” This confrontation of personal consciousness with theoretical and historical consciousness, with neurobiology and the history of art should go some way toward proving this thesis: there is only one story to tell, but because we do not know where we have come from and do not know where we are going, because the world is constantly changing but essentially unchanged, and because all storytellers are slightly different, the story as it is told manifests in infinite ways. We will begin with a tour of the Lascaux caves, read Wallace Stevens, watch Samuel Beckett, listen to Charles Ives, and look at Paul Klee. There will be other bits and pieces to observe or consume or study (depending on your point of view and attitude). You will write something or draw something or perform something about anything you like except how annoying air travel is.

This course will be an interdisciplinary exploration of the cosmology, philosophy, language, literature and cultural arts of ancient China, which can encompass feng-shui practices, divination, mythology, cuisine, garden design, landscape painting, or wherever our curiosities lead us. We will start with a basic introduction to very old cosmological systems, such as yin-yang theory and some key foundational myths---who needs a “man in the moon” when you can have a toad mixing the elixir of immortality up there instead? Wending our way westward toward China, we might journey to the Huntington’s Chinese garden, partake in scroll viewing at the Norton Simon museum in Pasadena, or sample teas and dim sum in the San Gabriel valley.

Depending on the personnel, we will negotiate the direction of the readings along myriad possible paths (that is, myriad dao #). The linguistics or Classics aficionados can contract for more Classical Chinese language instruction; artists, writers and readers can take us toward the visual arts, poetry or traditional martial arts novels, and the politically-minded can opt for The Art of War or other texts on statecraft and negotiation. If theory-heads enroll, we can also end the course by probing the long-standing U.S. fascination with the Chinese language and traditional Chinese aesthetics (here’s looking at you, Ezra Pound and Joss Whedon), but with three thousand years to cover, that might have to wait for a future semester.

JNST OOOX
Wednesday 6:00 – 9:00 p.m

House and the Nature of Medicine
V.V. Hayman

Dr. Gregory House has become one of the most infamous names in television, but is there a method to his madness? In this course, we will address House’s attitudes towards patients, doctors, diseases, and the practice of medicine. In doing so, we will assess the role of the medical field in current society. What does it mean to be healthy? What does it mean to be sick? How do we define medicine? How should medicine be practiced in today’s society? As we watch episodes and discuss themes within the show, we will learn about the functioning of the human body and relevant areas of scientific study. However, no previous experience in the sciences is needed to take this course. We will also encounter topics in medical ethics that will lead us to question the way medicine is conducted by those in the medical field. House may be a fictional show, but Dr. House and his team capture important aspects of medicine that may or may not be desired for society – that is for us decide.

JNST OOOY-01
TTH – 2:30-3:50

Cun Tao
Eli Kramer

“Poekoelan (Pu ku lan) is an Indonesian word, which means ‘series of blows with returning hands and feet;’ Tjimindie means ‘beautiful flowing waters;’ Tulen means ‘original.’ Together, this describes the movement of this complete martial art, which flows gracefully and is effective in both combat and healing. The art is symbolized by the flexible, supple, yielding bamboo and an individualistic, beautiful rose that has thorns to protect itself. These symbols are set upon a black background, which signify the secrets and mysteries of the art.

The systems movements are of a nature akin to water and bamboo, fluid and circular, spiraling and continuous, graceful and whip-like. Movements are derived from four animals; the tiger, the crane, the monkey, and the snake. The use of these animals provide a set of dynamic dualities: soft/hard, fast/slow, small/large, fierce/playful, circular/angular and high/low. All of this is combined with a meditative, dance-like form, called the ‘crawl,’ a movement that is completely unique to each practitioner.

Martial techniques for self-defense are joined with breath and energy for union of the body and mind. The purpose is to waken and connect with the body, seek clarity of self and learn to strengthen, protect, and secure the human spirit core by developing calm, compassion, and a high level of internal energy for use in healing. The advanced levels of training in the Tulen art inspire the student to develop not only physical skills but mental and spiritual skills as well. The three advanced phases of the Tulen System are White Dragon, Silver Dragon and Gold Dragon.
Students begin by bowing with empty hands and open minds to our teacher. The cleansing spirit of the art pours through them, and with each step, it washes and purifies them. The training drum rhythms guide the students to their own movement. To fully understand the essence of training, students are encouraged to ‘accept, breathe, flow and not be concerned with outcomes.’ Compassion-based Poekoelan Tjimindie Tulen offers a calm and fluidly beautiful art of self-protection and cultivation of the inner spirit.

Cun Tao is the first phase of training in the Poekoelan Tjimindie Tulen art. It’s a comprehensive self-defense course developed by Mas Goeroe Agoeng. Beginning Poekoelan students are taught effective self-defense skills, basic animal movements, kicks, punches, parries and the initial forms. Students also learn rolling, falling and a prescribed series of 108 quick releases, which can be used to defend against both empty handed attacks and attacks with weapons, including guns, knives, and clubs. Once the 108 attacks or ‘Holds’ are mastered, promotion is made to ‘Third Phase’ training. Throughout all phases of Poekoelan training, students practice meditation and train in the spirit of compassion.” (Poekoelan.com)

Third Phase class:
Students who are white sash and above will have Third Phase training and will continue to train in Cun Tao as assistant instructors. Third Phase Class will be taught on Sundays from 1-2:40PM.

JNST OOOZ

Introduction to Art Therapy

If you have a passion for art and a desire to give help to those in need, Art Therapy could be what you have been looking for. Introduction to Art Therapy is a new Johnston course starting in the spring of 2012. The profession of the art therapist is realtively new, but art has been healing mankind since art began. It has been shwon to improve and enhance both physical and emotional well being. This hands-on course will develop your art skills across a range of expressive art media and creative processes. You will even have the opportunity both to observe and participate in art therapy sessions at a local juvenille hall and retirement home. You may even feel the benefits of art therapy yourself, as you enhance your artistic and therapeutic skills.

JNST OOOZ.02
Tues – Thurs 1:00 2:20pm

Serious Fun Outside
Kate Naugle

“Must we always teach our children with books? Let them look at the stars and the mountains above. Let them look at the waters and the trees and flowers on Earth. Then they will begin to think, and to think is the beginning of a real education.”
-David Polis

Outdoor and adventure education might have sounded silly in the context of college courses in the not so distant past, and may still provoke chuckling today. In reality it is all part of a respected philosophy known as experiential education. Experiential education is a process by which students learn by doing, and consequently they learn about themselves, each other, and their relationship with the world and nature. In this particular class we will go over hard (practical) skills for outdoor living, and methods of group facilitation and leadership. There will be field trips.